The pictures posted by Dr. Drew above coincide with my Smith gun observations; which is that the gunworks stamped chamber lengths only on guns special ORDERED with other than standard length chambers were marked with a chamber length; and the Long Range/Wildfowl models.
Chamber length was not marked as standard on L.C. Smith barrel flats until Marlin bought the company in 1945.........."except the 3" long range 12 bore and .410's".....
I am of the opinion that chambers were marked only if other than standard.
These three quotes all make sense to me, probably one out of every 500 or so, if that many, was special chamber ordered and barrel flat marked.....?.........I've never seen one personally, but they must be out there somewhere......Drew's pictures shows two non-standard ones.......
Anybody else have pictures and details of pre 1940 L.C. Smith guns with
chamber length markings on the barrel flats......?.....
A record check with Cody could probably find out how many non-standard chambers were ordered......It would probably take at least eight hours minimum looking through the original factory ledgers at the museum.......?......
It would be very interesting to know the total number manufactured with these chamber length non-standard markings......According to the books, L. C. Smith and Hunter Arms combined produced a total of 299,603
double barrel guns from 1880 thru 1945.......
